Many clinical studies have shown the effectiveness of adjuvant hyperthermia when it is used in conjunction with radiotherapy and chemotherapy for cancer treatment. Increased tumor cell kill-rate is attained when the temperature in a tumor remains within 41° C. to 43° C. for a predefined period of time, while safety considerations require that the temperature of normal healthy tissue remains below some predetermined limit. In hyperthermia treatment, it is therefore necessary to control the temperature throughout the heated volume. Temperatures can be measured by invasive means, such as thermocouples, thermistors, or fiber-optic probes. However, only regions in close proximity to the probes can be monitored with these technologies, and thus, spatial sampling density of temperature is low. Furthermore, probe insertion may be painful and hazardous.
Magnetic resonance (MR) is a non-invasive and non-ionizing technique, which may produce anatomical images in any orientation. In addition, temperature measurements can be obtained by means of magnetic resonance imaging. However, conventional MR systems are not designed to accommodate hyperthermia systems. It is very challenging to combine hyperthermia and MR functions in a system by simply placing conventional RF hyperthermia apparatus inside a standard MR scanner. Significant changes are typically required for both systems to avoid crosstalk and degraded MR thermometry data, which may significantly affect the ability to track the thermal dose delivered.
For these and other reasons, there is a need for embodiments of the present invention.